New Fixtures from Vari*Lite

[soundlight]

So after swearing that they wouldn't ever come out with any low wattage fixtures, what does VL do? Finally bows to the pressure and releases some low wattage fixtures! They've had 700 watt fixtures (2500 series) for a while, but the 400 watters are something new. I've known about some of these for a while but since it wasn't public I didn't say anything until now.

The new fixtures are the VL400 spot, VL440 spot, VL770 spot and the VLX3. All of the spot fixtures have frost and (finally) have the prism on its own independent arm so you can use any gobo with the prism. Each spot fixture also has a fixed and a rotating gobo wheel, a 15-36 degree zoom (come on, VL, I expected more than that!), and they all use quick-change lamps (400: Phillips 400-watt HTI P28 Lok-it!™, 700: 700-watt Phillips MSR Gold™ MiniFastFit).

The VLX3 is a 3-engine version of the 7-engine VLX. Uses the same light engines but only has 3 and it's a small fixture. I honestly don't like it that much but I'm sure plenty of people will love this thing with its small size and the popular VLX engine.

And for my favorite thing when it comes to V*Ls, weight. These fixtures are light. The 770 spot comes in at only 56 pounds, compared to a MAC700 Profile's 76 pounds!

VL400 VL440 VL770 VLX3

[chausman]

Know anything about price?

[soundlight]

Nope - but it's Vari*Lite so it certainly won't be any normal person's idea of "inexpensive".

[derekleffew]

The VL400 appears to have all of the features of 1998's MAC500. VL440 adds CMY color mixing.
The VL770Spot appears to have the same feature set as the VL2500Spot, so I'm unclear as to its purpose.

Earlier today the VL product page had references to Wash versions, so I expect those are due out soon.

[soundlight]

The VL400 appears to have all of the features of 1998's MAC500. VL440 adds CMY color mixing.

Frost and zoom are not features of the MAC500. It's got all of the features of today's MAC575 Krypton plus frost. At 28 pounds lighter. And that's not just any CMY system that's added to the 440 (at the loss of one color wheel), that's the V*L CMY system that as a moving light tech I have come to appreciate quite a bit (over Martin's for instance).

The VL770Spot appears to have the same feature set as the VL2500Spot, so I'm unclear as to its purpose.

Plusses: adds frost, puts prism on its own arm, fastfit lamp and probably doesn't have the rectangular gobos that theatre designers love (heck, I like 2500s for that reason) and everyone else hates. I hope that the color and gobo wheel movements stay as fast as the 2500 (which is as fast as the Intellabeam which is pretty much instantaneous). The only thing lost is zoom range and it's a couple pounds heavier.

Both of these fixtures are also very compact and lightweight. Especially compared to their Martin counterparts.

[Pie4Weebl]

I am hopefully that while they have a pretty basic fixture set, they will have an intensity that blows other 500 watt (and maybe even some 700 watt) lights out of the water. If they can do that while being light weight I will be sold. (now lets see how my employer feels about these fixtures)